First quilt of the year

I'm so excited that I finished my first quilt of the year, on January 1st! I had the top finished for ages and it just layed around folded up. Lately, I'm just freezing cold at night watching TV and I wanted to use THIS quilt as a snuggly couch quilt. So, by golly, I decided I would do what my grandmothers and those before us did ..... if you want a quilt, quilt it! I realized I didnt have to wait to rent time on the longarm to do fancy quilting on this lap quilt. I realized I could do like ages before have done ... just utilitarian quilt it on my machine at home.

My sweet Mom came over and helped me lay out the backing, the quilt batting (bamboo!) and my quilt top. And we spray basted it together. The spray baste worked great! We were able to smooth the quilt, reposition it if necessary and it still stayed basted together. And after I wallered and folded and rolled the quilt to get it through my little 13 year old Singer machine ... it was STILL basted together!

I did a straight divided line pattern for quilting. My seams are all wavy and not straight, but I love it like that. I've washed the quilt and dried it, and it's nice and wrinkly and soft now.

It's the perfect couch, snuggly, throw quilt. Ahhh... Thanks for helping Mom!

:)

And I feel like I can do more like this at home and love them all! I have one more quilt top that is finished that needs quilted ... and then two old quilt tops that were my grandmother's that I want to finish as well. Then I need to work on doing Happy's quilt .. and get one made for my sweet nephew too.

The year has just begun!

Apple Seed

A few weeks ago, Happy and I were eating a Gala apple. When I was cutting it, a small seed fell out. Happy asked what it was. And being the eternal teacher that I am .... told him all about how it is a seed and it could grow into an apple tree. Well, Happy wanted to plant it and see. So I put the seed in between a few layers of moist paper towel, put that into a sandwich baggie and plopped it up on our kitchen window sill. After a week, I looked in there ...and lo and behold... it had rooted!

So then we planted it in a little pot ... and look what's happened in a week! We officially have an apple tree seedling! Happy looks at it each day and says "Look at my Mapple Tree!!!" (i dont know why he puts an m at the front of apple .. but its darn cute and I never correct him!).

I'll try and keep posting pictures of the seedlings and hope it keeps growing!!

Teacher gifts

Ahhhh, I love Christmas being a teacher. It was fun to get some teacher gifts today ..... :) Is that bad to say out loud? I know everyone that's a teacher probably thinks it .... but I never hear anyone say it too often!

And the interesting thing to me, is that I didnt care if I got a gift or not ... and so when I did get something it was just a nice surprise .. and the ones that didnt get me anything, I still love just as much. So for those of you that cant get a teacher gift for your childs teacher ... it's totally okay. :)

We finally got our Christmas tree tonight. It was fun for Happy ... and he loved going through the ornaments and saying "coool!" and "awesome" when he found neat ornaments that looked like toys.

Not too long till Christmas. And I think I'm ready.

I have two weeks off school, but I'm working part time at a retail store during that time. But I sure hope I get enough home time to work on quilting my batik quilt top. I'm going to try and do it on my home machine and just do diagonal lines. I want that quilt for a lap quilt in the living room .. so I'm not to picky on the quilting for it. I kind of feel like my grandmother and those before her probably felt ..... needed a quilt, made it ... and quilt it up and bind it and use it!

M

I'm usually a very late decorator for Christmas. We love having a real tree, but really hate the mess and watering .... so we wait until a week or so before Christmas to get the tree and put it up. Usually I just wait and put any decorations up until we get our tree.

But this year ... I jumped the gun and did it "early". Ha! I know people that have had their stuff out for weeks. i've only put things up on my mantle ... but I love it. The clutter of all the Christmas decorations drives me nuts, but this year if I do it simple ... it wont bother me like in previous years!

We'll have two trees in our house. One will be our real tree that we get the week before Christmas ... the other is our white artificial tree that is a Memorial Tree in memory of my daughter. In 30 more years, maybe my house will be covered in trees at Christmas! :)

Happy Day

This is our Thanksgiving Day lunch. We had 7 people here, and my brother had to work and wasn't able to be here ... but we loaded up a large tupperware container full of food for him when he gets back in!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. I cooked the whole spread and I love doing it! I love planning the meal (which, is the same each year..haha) and I love planning out the time frame of when I need to start each dish. I love setting my table with my same old dishes, that dont all match ... and my cute serving dishes that I got at our wedding 13 years ago ... and my new wal-mart red table cloth. It was fun to create a large meal and have my family come over to eat with us.

Happy was sweet, and told me "Man this is good Mom! You did good!" And my nephew, who is 10 tomorrow!, ate more than I've seen him eat in a long while! He praised my cooking too. I love feeding those two boys!

After lunch, the boys played outside and created some art for me....

My nephew created the one above.

My son created the one above ... it says Mom. My nephew said that Happy wrote it himself... but I'm thinking he must have had some help!

I think this sums up how I feel. All done. :)

I'm so thankful for my family. I'm thankful for being able to have a large meal, a home to cook it in and all my old dishes and stuff that I take for granted every day. I'm thankful Happy and my Nephew are healthy and happy and full of energy. I'm thankful that I've got the best group of friends ever. Heck, I'm just thankful to be here!

Terrible Twos and Terrible Threes

A throw size quilt top that's been finished for a while. I have some fancy bamboo batting, and a pretty red batik for the backing..... but no time to quilt it. I may just do an easy diagonal on it using my home machine. I just want to use it in my living room during the winter, so it doesnt have to be fancy!

I've always said that I think that the terrible two's are NOTHING compared to the Three's. As Happy is fast approaching Three, it's becoming more and more evident that my theory holds true for him as well. :)

My preschool class was a mess today. We had 16 two year olds (some are almost 2 and some are almost 3) ... and it's the week before a good long Thanksgiving break. I dont know if they are just tired of the everyday routine and I need to change things up a bit? Or are they just tired, period, and the everyday routine is a good stable thing in their lives? I tend to lean towards keeping things the same each day, but adding some new behavior management techniques.

I feel like I probably need a new behavior management technique for myself sometime. Wouldnt it be nice if we could just decide that we needed a change in our routine, and it is magically accomplished and everyone obliged us and did things a new way? :)

It helps to look back at Happy's baby picture in the post below, and remember that he's still just little ... and he'll only be little for such a short while. And all those little ones in my class, are just special and little for a short while too.

Heck, tomorrow .... we're going to play with Shaving Cream on the tables! :)

Tired

Here's Happy when he was a baby .... look at that chub!! He's skinny now and all grown up ... well, as much as a 2 3/4 can be!

Teacher work days are hard! We had a lot of labeling and rearranging and cleaning to do, to get ready for a consultation for our environmental rating for special accredidation. I dropped Happy off with Grandmama and PawPaw at 7:30, got to work at 8 and finally left work at 4:30 .... picked up Hubby at home, then met everyone for BBQ and a local place that's really good.

So now I'm tired. And Lazy. And all I wanted to do was watch Survivor when we got home. Well, Happy got the living room TV and played a video game (yes, he's almost 3 and loves video games) and Hubby got the bedroom TV and watched football. He offered to turn the channel, but I got busy sorting through my old file's and declined. At least I got some clutter cleared off!

A friend has been talking about cleaning and decluttering on her blog lately. And I think it's rubbing off on me. Thanks, friend! :) I can see more of my bedroom floor than I've seen in weeks! I have tomorrow off work, so hopefully with a 3 day weekend I can get some more cleaning done!

Potlucks and Work Days

I'm not a fan of potlucks. Am I the only one? (well, I know my Mom isn't a fan of them either ... is it inherited! ha! ) Usually I pick at whatever I get at a potluck, and wonder if they are clean cookers .... did they scratch their butt and then knead some dough? Pick their nose, then test the cookies? I should probably get over it, but I won't! :)

Tomorrow is teacher work day. No kids at school! Whoo hoo! But, to be honest, I'm secretly (not such a secret now!) excited about teacher work day! I can't wait to have a whole day to work on my classroom .... clean out the teacher closet, organize our art supplies, label the shelves, clean and sanitize the rooms and toys and cots, and work on next month's curriculum and lesson plans.

But, along with teacher work day .... comes a Potluck. Sigh. I'm bringing green bean cassarole. I'll just cook it in the kitchen tomorrow at school. Least it was cheap to make!

Happy is spending the day with his Grandmama and PawPaw tomorrow. He went to bed tonight asking if he could just go ahead and go now! I know they will have a great time together ... and he's always happy to be there. In fact, he usually asks me to go ahead and leave once we get there!

I'm happy to have a well adjusted, Happy little boy. He sure is sweet.

M

One minute to write

I found this site tonight: http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com/ and thought it was interesting.

The daily prompt for a minute of writing is, What is your favorite place in your home?

Here goes... start the timer!

My favorite place in my home is either our living room or our kitchen ... and certainly not because of the furniture or the decorating! I love those places in our home, when they are full of Us! I love the rooms because they contain our spirit and love. These rooms are comfortable and warm in the evening. These rooms are Home.

Time's up!

Speaking of decorating ... I bought the cutest red, glittery Merry Christmas sign to go on my mantle. I LOVE that darn sign... well, it's really wooden letters? Anywhooo.. I'm tickled to start decorating for Christmas! And I never decorate for Christmas until the week before!

Hand, foot and mouth disease was in my classroom today. Sigh. We sent the poor boy out as soon as we saw what he had. But I sure hope the damage isn't done and that all my poor 2 yr old's (and Happy in the other class) have gotten it. I'm watching Happy closely, and will be looking at each little one this week to check for signs of it.

The good news is that we're out of school Thurs and Friday for teacher work days! Whoo hoo!

Tonight I made chicken and vegetable stir fry with white steamed rice. It was delish! Tomorrow will either be hot dogs and home made chili or home made taco's and cheese dip (velveeta and rotel).

Later!

Inspired

I love this picture of Happy at the beach. He was so excited to get out there, that he took off down the boardwalk and stopped just as I had my camera ready. I sure did love that vacation with my favorite boys!

I was inspired by a good friend and fellow blogger ... and today I cleaned my room too! I only got the floor at the foot of my bed cleared off ... but the things that were there are now in storage boxes in the garage ready to go in the attic! At least it's progress!

I also created a photobucket account for my preschool class, and thought that I'll take pictures through the year and post it on an account and let the parents have the password so they can see some candid shots of their kids in class!

I'm trying to pack for my girls trip. But all that's in my bag is an extra pair of jeans. I wish I could wear cute clothes ... and afford to buy them! So I'm going to finish packing and get ready for a fun trip ... hey, maybe I'll find some clothes?

Sesame Street

I'm from the Sesame Street generation. But I've never watched Sesame Street quite like I did today! It was rainy during our morning recess time, so we got together with another two year old class and watched some Sesame Street.

Seriously, 20 something 2 year old's all laughed out loud at the words "Bus Stop" All they had to say was Bus Stop and they all laughed. It cracked me up. And I loved to see them smile and laugh and be silly. It was nice to be with the other class too, because that's where Happy is. And during Sesame Street time, he got beside me and asked for "some sugar". I love Mama's Boys.

Because one day, he'll be too big to ask me for 'sugars' when I drop him off at school. So most days, I give him 2 or 3 or more 'sugars'. It's really for both of us. :)

I'm so much better from my 24 hr 10 lb weight loss virus. I'm carrying some immodium on my girls trip just in case, though.

Later!

It is official. I am full of crap.

It's official. I'm full of crap .... exactly 10 pounds. I'm on the tail end of a nasty 24 hr virus, in which stuff was coming out both ends at the same time every hour on the hour through the night last night. When I weighed this morning, I had lost 10 pounds. Wow. Not a diet plan I would want to try again.

Working preschool is tough! Not only is it a fairly high stress job, but now I am getting every little bug and germ that comes through. It's worth it to me though. And I really feel like this is where God wants me to be right now. And that's a good feeling.

We have web-cams in our classrooms. I realized that I was picking my butt the other day in front of the camera, but the class was empty at the time. I had serious panty crawling and had to get it OUT! I'll not make that mistake in front of the camera again ... I know where the camera can't see! hahaha...

Two more days left in this work week .. and then a nice overnight trip with my college girlfriends. It'll be nice to shop, eat, drink and be merry together. We've all had a lot going on in our lives lately, and it's nice to just chill out together and relax.

Whoops!

Okay, so my post a day is already a pitiful failure .... but I'm trying. :) Maybe a post every other day is more up to my speed!

We went to a parade Saturday and had the most fun! Of course, it is helpful that the parade THREW candy at us! So not only did Happy have a huge load of candy from Halloween night, but also a huge bag of candy from Saturday! (silent hollar of glee from me!) Yep, I'm eating his candy and I love it.

I have PMS this week. I'm allowed, right? Tonight I'm eating Nerds and KitKat. Ahhh.

And I have a favorite drink for the holiday season..... Pepsi's Siera Mist Cranberry Splash. It is SO friggin good. I even love the diet drink of it. And they only make it until Christmas! So I drink a lot for these few months.

School was great today. I have a wonderful new helper in my class, and she's full of love and sweetness... which is a nice change from the Drill Sargent helper I did have. And Happy is really adjusting well to his class. Our two classes go to recess together each day, so it's really, really nice to be around him each day while I work! Some days he hangs onto me, and wants hugs ... other days he is holding girls hands and running through the playground grinning.

It has taken a full month, but I've settled nicely into my new preschool job. I enjoy the kids, I have a lot of respect for my bosses and love that they support me. We have web cams in our classes .... so I try not to pick my panties out of my crack in front of the camera! ha!

I am almost settled into working full time again, and I've got my lesson plans made for the month ... so now I feel like my weekends can get some craft time in!

What a month!

Yesssss sir. I started preschool, and got sick sick sick for a MONTH. I finally feel better. For a while I couldn't even talk, my voice was gone ... I coughed all the time. And in the process of it all, I made my whole family sick. It's bad when your husband and your Mom and your son go to the Dr. and say that I make them sick. :)

Today is the 17 year anniversary of the day that I met my husband. A blind date lunch at Wendy's turned out to be the best lunch of my life. He's a sweet man and I'm glad we're together. :)

I'm going to try to post every day this month. We'll see how I do.

I need to clean my house. There is fake incredible hulk hair all over the kitchen and living room.

There are strips and pieces of black fabric all over the kitchen floor ... from making a quick zebra shirt for Happy's "harvest" party at school on Friday. I loved this outfit more than the Incredible Hulk with Bad hair.

My bedroom is a cluttered mess. We had a yard sale last weekend, and I decided I didnt need a file cabinet in our room, so I dumped out everything in it and now it is STILL on the floor. There is only a path to walk to the bed on my side. I'm ashamed of the mess.

My only good bra broke today. The underwire snapped in half. My poor saggy girls are gross and need support. So I got two new bras today. I hope it makes them happy and upright citizens of my body. :)

I'm eating too much Halloween candy. My teeth hurt. But, I'm trying to keep my 2 yr old from eating it. I'm doing him a fine service, you see!

Tomorrow is grocery day, and lesson plan making day. I sure hope I get a nap tomorrow too.

I love my Mom. She kept Happy today and I got a two hour nap, and a nice dinner alone with my Hubby.

.........be Happy!

I'm starting PreSchool!

Happy and I are starting Preschool together. I may be 34 and he may be 2, but this is perfect timing! I start teaching at a new Christian preschool on Wednesday. Happy starts at this school on Monday. Does anyone want to take bets on when we both get sick first? This weekend perhaps??

Unfortunately I'll be working my retail management night/weekend job until the end of next week. So for two weeks I'll be working 40-60 hours a week. Does anyone want to take bets on when I'll break down into tears from being tired? This weekend perhaps???

I'm excited to be teaching 2 year olds. And I'm excited that Happy will be in the other 2 year old class across the hall from me. I love that I can get a 30 min break during the day and can spend that time with him if I want/need to.

Its been a long time since I've taught. And I've never actually taught children this young, aside from my own. I'm really looking forward to having my work day end at 3:30/4:00. I'm looking forward to the fullfillment of working with children. I hope that I make the parents happy.

I've been scouring the internet looking for free preschool lessons, songs, activities, etc. My arsenal of activities are all for older kids. And I'm awful at remembering little fun songs for kids! I've got my work cut out for me for the next month or so until I get into the groove.

Until then, the kids may hear some made up songs for a while!

We visited the class today (Happy and I). I was anxious to see how he would handle all the kids and noise, since he's usually always with me or my parents. And I'm so pleased that he loved it and was so good! He even had a collision with one of the rougher boys, and he just looked at that kid like he was nuts .... and walked away from him. I sighed a little breath of relief! But by the time it was lunch time, Happy came over to me and said "Mommy .. let's get out of here and go to Sonic!!!" and you know what I said .. "Okay!! Let's get out of here!" hahahah.. I couldnt help it! We didnt need to stay any longer for our visit today anyway. :)

Wish me and Happy good luck!

County Fair Time!

I love going to the County Fair ... LOVE it. Tonight was the last night for our small county fair (well, not small exactly), and we went with my parents and my nephew. It was so much fun!

Happy was old enough to ride some rides, and he even got to ride with his older cousin on the bumper cars! It makes my soul smile to see those two handsome boys smiling, laughing and giggling on a fair ride.

During this coming year, I'm going to make a quilt to enter into the fair. After looking at the quilts and art that were entered this year, I really think I could hold my own! Anyway, it would be fun to have the experience.

Enjoy the ride of life!

Vacation and Floating Butt Fat

This past weekend we finally had a family vacation. We drove 10+ hours to get to Perdido Key, FL to stay for 2 nights and drive another 10+ hours back home. It was well worth the 20 hours of drive time with a 2 1/2 year old in the back seat of a little Hyundai. Well worth it.

First of all, Happy was a fabulous boy during the long trip. Usually he is an awful car rider and gets bored just going to Wal-Mart, and begs to get out of his car seat. I had prepared him for the "long ride" and "the beach" and "the pool". So evidently it all made a difference to him and he was ready for the ride! Plus, it helped that I had a special big Mommy bag of goodies. :) I had gone to the Dollar Tree earlier in the week and bought about 7 cheap little $1 toys (bag of lizards, coloring book, motorcycle that made noise, etch a sketch cheapie, magnetic book, army men, etc). Each of these toys went into a brown lunch bag and I folded them closed. These all went into a big bag that Happy knew nothing about. Then during the trip, if I anticipated a melt down or could see he was bored .... I'd pull out a Goodie Bag and tell him how proud we were of him. It worked! He LOVED the Goodie Bags and it really did help! And belive it or not, I didnt even have to use all of the bags! Plus, we have a cheap dvd travel player that was strapped to the back of the passenger headrest (yes, my headrest... ugh) .. and Happy watched a lot of Cars, Jungle Book and Nemo... he watched them A LOT. In fact, I think I now have them memorized. And the trip pillowcase was perfect for him during nap in the car!

That was a big long ramble.. ha.ha ha.

The vacation was perfect. The weather was beautiful. The pool was still warm enough to get in. The ocean was rough from Ike, but that was okay ... we found lots of seashells and enjoyed the sand and the view!

I am overweight. Although I've lost about 40 pounds in the past 2 years, I still need to lose about 70 more. That's big. ugh. Anywayyyy... the beaches were empty, the pool was empty. And I decided I was going to wear my bathing suit without shorts. And I felt ... Lib-er-rated!!! Wahhhoo.. Of course, it helped that no one was around but us! Okay, there were some people.. but I saw their fat too and I didnt care. :) But aside from feeling so liberated by wearing my bathing suit, I also found out something else.......

Fat floats. Yep. I got in the pool and felt something behind me everytime I jumped around in the water. I looked behind me, reached back there .. and mercy me, my butt was floating! Yup.. floating butt fat isn't a good thing. Shudder. I think I just figured out the way to get the rest of my 70 pounds of fat off .... think of floating butt fat every time I eat! ha! Shudder.

_

Pillow Cover

Happy has a small pillow that doesnt have a cover. It's too small for standard pillow cases. So today I thought that this pillow would be a great travel/car pillow. And then I pulled out some fabric and sewed together this quick pillow cover using a fat quarter and about a 6 inch wide piece of fabric.

It was quick and easy and I think it turned out cute! Happy loves his new little pillow case! And it will be easy to pull off and toss in the washing machine once it's dirty!

Carded

Sweet Hubby and I recently got away for a day/night and went to the casinos that are a few hours away. It was nice to get away and relax ... and lose money. ha! I usually do fairly well at blackjack, but luck wasn't with me on this trip. Hubby did fine, and ended up breaking even.

The best part of the trip is that I actually got carded at the table! I was shocked, and they said that if you look under 30 ... they'll usually ask for your ID. I was tickled to have to get out my drivers licence and show them that I'm over 30. :)

Happy has been battling a cold for about a week. Looks like it's going to linger for a while longer. With a 2 year old, it's not just a snotty nose ... .it's snot everywhere! He wipes a long his arm.. ewwww!

I bought some fabric at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon the other day. But I got the wrong color of white Kona cotton. Sigh. I got bleached white, and I should have gotten snow white. There's a lot of difference in the white's. But at least I have 5 yards of bleached white for a different project. Now I need to get more snow white for my stars project.

I just like buying fabric, I guess. And I love paper too.

Quilting

There's a blog that I love, and she has done a star quilt-a-long recently. I've decided to join along and make this quilt using scraps that I already have and try to keep the colors boyish enough for it to be Happy's full size quilt. http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2008/04/star-quilt-along-week-1.html





Here's what I have so far ...

It's fun. It was relaxing. I hope it turns out pretty ...